you don’t have to be held to be whole (for you)

i know the bed feels safer
when someone’s in it.

i know the nights hit harder
when you’re alone.

but moving from hand to hand
won’t stop the emptiness.

stitching yourself to strangers
won’t seal the cracks in your ribs.

the honeymoon was a band-aid,
not a cure.
real love doesn’t flinch
when the glitter fades.

but you
you’ve been collecting exits,
each relationship a hallway,
each hallway a prayer
for something brighter.

and yet, here you are:
trapped between almost and not enough,
smiling in photos,
but dissolving in the dark.

this isn’t judgment.
this isn’t blame.

it’s worry.
it’s grief.

you keep calling it love,
but love shouldn’t feel like
a distraction from yourself.
it shouldn’t taste like
forgetting your own voice.

you say this one’s softer
but better isn’t the same as right.
softer isn’t salvation.
it’s just quieter.
just less lonely.
less silent.
less like staring
at the thing you’ve been running from.

and i get it.
silence can be violent.
silence can split skin.
but leaping heart to heart
won’t save you.
it’s just buying time
if the person you keep running from
is still in the mirror.

you don’t owe the world pretty apologies
for existing.

you don’t owe your body
as collateral for company.

you don’t have to earn love
by being easy to hold.

you don’t have to stay
just because leaving feels like failure.

i want you to hunger
for a love that doesn’t ask you to shrink.

but first
i need you to stop running.

i want you to find someone who sees you,
but more than that,
i want you
to see you.